Damnations
by IamThePasserby
Summary: sequel to Dimensions After Anna's death in April, Dean is more than messed up. But what if death is only one-dimensional? Can Dean fight the demons that seem to follow him and his loved ones, or will he learn too late that all of them are meant to damned
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

The night sky was like blue ink, the color seeping into the quiet world beneath it. Palm trees lined the sides of the pavement as the white Acura sped down it, coming to a stop at a brightly lit four-way intersection. It seemed odd that a place with palm trees and Spanish style homes that had acre lots and swimming pools could seem so deeply depressing.

But depressing was exactly what it was.

The light turned, and the same white car surged forward, not so fast that it seemed in a hurry, but fast enough to bode unease, or a slight notion of impatience.

But in those days, in that place, even _that_ was suspicious.

The orange glow from the streetlights faded, returning every so often as the car passed another, so that the light seemed to come in waves. It seemed appropriate for the driver; intensity was coming off of her in waves too.

She was quiet, not singing along to the blaring music that came from her car's old speakers, not talking on the cell phone that sat in her back pocket, not even breathing loudly. She seemed focused, determined, and slightly dangerous, as if she had a job to do and it was suicide to get in her way.

She pulled her foot up off of the accelerator, and eased on the brake as she neared her destination. The house was unremarkable, much like the others that lined the street called 'Bradley'. The mailbox on the curb was gaudily decorative, white paint peeling from the more extreme points of the curling metal around it. On the side of it was engraved the address; 4114. In view of the street was a wrought iron gate, also painted white in the past and also in need of touching up. The gate was unlocked and open, which might have seemed strange to passerby, but she didn't appear to be surprised. She pulled her car into the driveway, which was long and circular, curving around a dry fountain that was surrounded by the kind of smooth rocks you buy to make your garden look too perfect. They seemed out of place.

The house looked old. Its white paint was browning at the bottom, as if the dirt from the overgrown front garden had grown tired of obeying gravity and decided to try climbing up the wall. Half of the flowers were dead, and the ones that were living were wildly out of control, so that the front of the house was grubby-looking instead of pleasant. Even in the darkness, the dirt on the windows begged for a hose's stream, and the sectioned wasp's nests under the eaves competed with mud-made bird's nests for territory. At the far side of the large house was another white gate, this one with a garish 'M' in the center of it, and behind that gate the end of a swimming pool connected to a small Jacuzzi could barely be seen in the night while crabgrass land stretched behind it until it met a guest house beside a rusted swing set and a dog run. It was odd, because though the house was clearly in need of renovation and general taste, it didn't seem that it hadn't been lived in recently. In fact, the white house with its tiled roof and round-top chimney looked as if it was merely waiting for its owner, who might have left on a weekend vacation, to return. It was as if the state of it was so because said owner desired it to be so.

The almost unnoticed sound of the white Acura's engine came to an end as the key left the ignition. She had come to a stop, rounding the fountain so that her passenger door was closest to the house's front door. Her face was still impassive, and she sat only momentarily before opening her door with a squeak and exiting the car. She went to the trunk, and opened it, pulling a stuffed duffel from it and hefting the strap over her shoulder. She still made no sound, though the load must have been heavy, and she slammed the trunk shut, still expressionless as she made her way beneath the California stars to the front door of the house. Ignoring the spider webs above the door, ignoring her slight reflection in the glass set in the white wood, she grasped the gold colored doorknob and shoved the unlocked door open to the dark and eerily quite entryway of the dwelling.

Something changed. It was as if an electric charge had suddenly filled the air, and the night was no longer quiet and depressing, but interestingly tense, and even she seemed to straighten and crouch simultaneously, her suddenly careful stance as she stepped slowly and purposefully into the house, her movement suggesting her absolute certainty that she knew well what she was doing. She let the door close softly behind her, and though the light switch was within easy reach of her arm, she simply swept the space around her with alert and cautious eyes, while her hands searched inside her duffel for something. Finding what she had been looking for, she set the duffel bag on the floor, taking slow and quiet steps on the white tile, going further into the house, past the formal room that branched from the entryway and coming to what must have been the living room. A large tv and French doors were within her sight when she began to straighten to her full height, her dark hair hiding one side of her face as she clung to the end of the entryway wall, inching further down to peak into the living room.

It was then that she began to sing, softly and sweetly, but clearly so that it carried into the entire house for all of the furniture to hear.

"Happy birthday to you…" the familiar tune was sung slowly but perfectly, and she edged into the living room, scanning it once before turning to another white hallway with doors along it on both sides.

"Happy birthday _to_ you…" the second phrase of the melody spread through the house, and with her arms down in front of her, grasping something that the shadows kept hidden, she searched all of the rooms that the hallway lead to very quickly.

"Happy birth-" some sound that only she heard caught her attention, and her head whipped around to the hallway's entrance. She began to backtrack, suddenly certain that whatever it was she was meaning to find was back the way she came.

"Birthday…" she finished the word she'd been singing, and slowed her voice down with her step as she came to cling against the wall once more before entering the living room again.

"Dear Gr-" she was cut off, having just peaked around the corner and come immediately face to face with a hideously decayed woman's visage, her mouth wide and dry, eyes gray and unseeing, her skin pale and drawn.

She was thrown as if by a huge invisible hand across the room, slamming into the fireplace mantel in the living room, inwardly cursing the fact that it had to be a _brick_ fireplace. Groaning angrily, she pushed herself up surprisingly fast, and raised her hand which had not let go of the sawed off shotgun she'd been holding, a weapon that had been hidden before by the darkness, but was now clearly seen in the moonlight that shone through the glass of the French doors. She fired at the pale figure in the light-colored dress.

The resulting anguished cry seemed to echo around her, and it was a phrase screamed in Spanish. The deathly woman disappeared, and the other woman that was clearly a hunter whirled around, gun held steady, waiting. She blinked blood out of her left eye, annoyed at the small drip stemming from the cut on her head. She gritted her teeth, obviously frustrated, but her eyes were no less determined than before as she began to sing once more through her clenched teeth.

"Happy birthday to you…" a chair flew at her from across the room, and she jumped out of its way just in time, not bother to look as it shattered on the opposite wall.

"Happy birthday_ to_ you…" she ducked as a vase was sent flying in her direction, and the shrill scream of the spirit's Spanish words sounded around her again.

"_Mi princessa! Donde esta mi princessa! No se! Ay Dios, no se!_"

"Happy birthday-"

"_Callate! Donde esta mi princessa! Solo mi princessa canta por mi! Solo ella!_"

"-to-"

"_AHORA, DEMONIO, CALLATE_!" it was obvious that the huntress knew how to anger the spirit, knew that the song meant something, that the spirit would react to it. It appeared that she had done her research well, for as soon as the spirit appeared, cursing in Spanish and reaching to kill her, the hunter pulled from her pocket the simplest thing; a small stuffed bird. With a screech the spirit pulled away, terrified by the little stuffed robin, her dead eyes bulging and her rotting face twisting into a horrified mask of terror as she back away, screaming.

It gave the huntress all the time she needed.

With a nearly unreal speed, the she snatched at the ghostly woman's neck, grasping the gold chain that hung there and wrenching it away. The woman screamed again, cursing in her language, but unable to get at her attacker, somehow hindered by the fake bird. The huntress threw the bird at her and had her gun up while the woman was screaming, firing twice before running across the room and through the entryway to her duffel by the door. She grabbed a small package with a string attached and bolted back to the living room, tossing it into the open fireplace that she had earlier been thrown against.

She was slammed into by the woman, and her body crashed into the tv, shattering the screen. She yelped, but wasted no time before attempting to pull herself up, groaning again at her new cuts and bruises. The spirit charged at her a second time, and she dodged, launching herself toward the brick fireplace, reaching to pull the string from the small package and tossing the chain she had pulled from the deathly woman's neck. She launched herself again, away this time, and the next second stretched in a suddenly very still, very expectant silence.

The pale woman's decayed mouth opened wide to scream, and if anyone had been there to see, they would have noticed that the locket that hung from the gold chain, now laying in the fireplace, had opened when it fell, and inside was a picture of two smiling faces; a young girl with dark curls and an older woman with shorter, straighter, reddish-brown hair that fell around her wrinkling face as she hugged the dark-haired girl with obvious love.

The extended second ended, and the ghostly woman never had time to sound her scream. The small package exploded, spitting flame out of the fireplace four feet in all directions with a burst of light and heat. The huntress shielded herself, huddling while the sound died away and the flames receded somewhat. She looked up afterwards to see the fireplace burning greatly, the glint of the gold chain and locket leaving at it melted and the picture within burned.

She sat there a moment, panting, before pushing herself painfully to her feet.

She stood ridiculously still for about a minute before she started to tremble.

Her alert stance changed, her legs shaking and her shoulders sagging, her façade of determined impassiveness gone as emotion began to cloud her face. Something seemed to crash over her as she half-limped through the thrashed living room, dirtying the white tile of the entryway as she came to the front door once more. It seemed that once she had completed her purpose here, her job, an immense amount of feeling and meaning had swept over her with that explosion. She pulled the door open with her left hand, her right wrapped around her bruised body, and she turned back to look once more at the all white house in a way that was longing, reminiscent, almost loving. She gazed at the large portrait that hung in the formal room that branched from the entryway, seeing the same girl and woman from the locket. Underneath the portrait were several other frames, all with the same two people, all with the same love and smiles and happiness.

The frame on the end showed the young girl and the older woman singing together while cutting a birthday cake.

Tears formed in her eyes, and she struggled to force down a sob as she whispered in a broken and distinctly sorrowful voice.

"Happy birthday, Grandma."

She left, and the door closed behind her. The flames in the fireplace burned themselves slowly out, crackling as the pink light of dawn made its way slowly into the sky and through the windows into the white house.

The sun's early glow shone onto that portrait in the formal room. It glinted off of a plaque on the bottom of the portrait's frame. The gold was engraved in a beautiful font, and it read two simple lines.

_Elena and Anna_

_Abuela y su Princessa_

Twenty minutes away, in a tan house on Norwich Dr., Anna Walker was sobbing in the arms of a man in a leather jacket.


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Dean drove without having to think, ignoring the setting California sun that shone in his eyes as he kept the Impala going sixty-five on the 91 Freeway. He kept his expression dull and empty; it wasn't hard to do since he was pretty much empty anyway.

His hands moving expertly with the steering wheel, Dean's mind was able to wander. It was easier this way, on the road, where Sam couldn't look directly into his eyes, where he had the excuse of driving to distract his body from reacting to his thoughts...or memories.

_Made up my mind to make a new start, going to California with an achin' in my heart. . . _

The radio played a familiar song, and Dean didn't waste time trying to fight the impact the lyrics made on him.

_Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair. . . _

He blinked once, but he didn't move otherwise. Sam was staring out the passenger window and bouncing the fingers of his left hand on his leg. He probably wanted to be driving; he'd gotten used to being the one driving.

_I think I might be sinkin'…_

The freeway wasn't thick with traffic, at least not on their side. The four lanes heading the other way were crawling inch by inch. Dean pushed the Chevy up to eighty.

_Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born. . . _

Hating himself, Dean gave into the need and reached over to slap the radio off. He felt Sam look at him, no doubt with concern and some measure of frustration. Dean ignored him.

He pulled the car to the right, exiting the freeway. There was business to attend to in Riverside, California.

* * *

Sam tried to stare out the window and not think.

It wasn't working out so well.

For some reason, he was hyper aware of every little thing; the sound of the engine growling in a constant rhythm, the way the car rocked slightly as they sped along the freeway, the steady cadence of Led Zeppelin coming from the radio's speakers, and the stillness of Dean as he seemingly drove without thinking.

Sam wished he could be driving.

It was strange to think that not too long ago it was rare for him to be _allowed_ to drive; a lot of things had changed in the last five months. Sam had been getting used to being the designated driver, and had even come to appreciate the Impala in a new way since...well, since the events in Ohio.

Sam began to tap the fingers of his left hand on his leg, feeling antsy without having something to keep his hands and feet occupied. He _really_ wanted to be driving.

It wasn't that he didn't want Dean to drive. It was good for Dean to be driving again. Sam had been relatively relieved when Dean had stridden to the driver's side two weeks ago and demanded the keys. It was a step forward, a step away from the lingering effects of that day, that motel room, that sight…

The radio was suddenly silenced and Sam turned in time to see Dean's hand returning to the wheel, his dull, empty expression still intact.

Sam restrained the urge to sigh, somewhat concerned, but mostly frustrated. He tried to remember what song had been playing that Dean apparently hadn't been able to take hearing anymore. _What was it…Battle of Evermore? No, not that one, it was…wait, it was Going to Cali- oh._ Sam recalled the lyrics to that song.

_Made up my mind to make a new start, going to California with an achin' in my heart. Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair…tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born. Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams, telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems._

Sam winced. He could understand why those words would be hard for Dean to hear.

Even just coming here of all places; it was more than a little weird. Sam could only imagine how difficult it had to be for Dean. This was where Anna had lived, in her own dimension. This unremarkable city of Riverside, California was symbolic of so much that went unexplained during the long passed month of April. Now October, it seemed simultaneously that it had happened just yesterday and centuries ago. All in all, it hurt just the same.

Dean's decision to head here had been a surprise to say the least. Sam had noticed he'd been on the computer alot lately; Dean had become the official job-finder, but until then they'd mostly stayed in the southern states, taking whatever hunts Dean suggested they take. Then, last week, Dean suddenly grabbed their stuff and said they needed to head for California, that there was a job to do there and they needed to go. He hadn't really given Sam any details, saying something about an angry spirit and orange groves, but Sam had decided not to push it.

Dean didn't talk much these days anyway.

"You hungry?" Dean asked.

Sam pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked at his brother before nodding.

"Yeah, sure."

Dean did that alot too; he asked if Sam was hungry, if Sam was tired, if Sam wanted to do this or do that. It was like Dean only ate or slept or did anything when Sam wanted to, like he had no desire anymore.

It was...sad.

At first glance, Dean seemed together enough. He still stood tall, he still took point, he still played the part of protector and brother, but he was just so quiet.

And secretive.

Sam tried to tell himself it was nothing at first, just his imagination; but more often than not Dean was shutting the laptop when he entered the room, taking off to undisclosed areas of the library during research lulls, and staring off into space in deep thought when he thought Sam wasn't paying attention. Sam was no idiot; Dean was hiding something.

They pulled up to a drive-thru and ordered the same fast food trash they always did. The drive down Van Buren Blvd was quiet as Sam thought and worried. They tooks a few streets until they came to the Woodcrest Airport Inn. The building was situated about fifty feet away from an old air force base turned museum. They pulled in and Sam went to get the room while Dean grabbed the stuff from the trunk. Out of habit, Sam picked a prime numbered room: 3. Room numbers mattered for them nowadays. He met Dean outside and grabbed his bag before leading the way to their room. When they reached the door with a gritty looking number three nailed in it, Sam put in the key and turned.

"Why'd you pick this one?" Dean asked. Sam turned to see that Dean was staring at the number three. He wasn't angry or upset, but his expression was almost...defensive. It was weird.

"What?"

"I mean, did they pick it for you or did you ask for it?" Dean was talking fast the way people do when they're giving an excuse for saying something stupid. Sam blinked.

"Why?" Dean gave the tiniest grunt and then hitched his bag higher on his shoulder, his face an unintelligable mask.

"Nevermind." Dean reached around Sam and shoved the door open before heading inside and leaving Sam confused on the thresh hold.

The younger hunter shook his head and followed him.

Dean was ansty the entire night.

Sam could tell when Dean was anxious about something, and it was obvious that something was eating at his big brother; he was sharpening his knives. Usually, Dean cleaned the guns or counted ammunition when he was relaxed. He only ever sharpened his knives when he was nervous or hiding something.

The problem was that it could've been either, and Sam couldn't decide which it was. He knew that being in California could easily be making Dean nervous; Jess had died here, Anna had sort of lived here, more than one job had gone awry here. Yet Sam couldn't shake the feeling that there was something he was missing, and that made him think that there was something Dean wasn't telling him.

So Sam sat in the quiet with his brother until nearly one o'clock, researching their hunt while Dean shaprened his knives. It was twelve after when Dean suddenly dropped everything and grabbed his jacket.

"I'll be right back," he said. Sam leaned back in his chair and half lifted his hands in question as his brother started to head for the door.

"Wait - Dean!"

"I'll be back Sammy." He hadn't even turned around, just kept walking. He grasped hold of the doorknob.

"Dean, wait," Sam was seriously concerned now; Dean didn't just take off like this, "just hold on a second already," Sam was standing in the middle of the room now,"where are you going? What's going on?"

Dean stopped with his hand on the door, but he still didn't turn. He just stood there, like he was fighting something. Sam stared at him, and he saw Dean shoulders fall as he lost the fight and turned around.

"Sam..." he began, then just kinda stood there.

And it was the strangest thing, but standing there in a stupid motel room with bad lighting and off-white towels, Sam and Dean stood five feet away from eachother and Sam knew something big was coming. He looked at Dean who was averting his eyes and looking angry at himself, and he suddenly knew that he had to say something and now, because he might not get a chance to later. It was the strangest and strongest feeling Sam had felt in a while, and it scared him more than anything had in just as long. He wanted to ask his brother what he was hiding, because he knew now that there was something he didn't know, that whatever Dean was keeping from him wasn't menial or insignificant, but drastic and dangerous. He knew without a doubt that the reason Dean didn't want to look at him was because he knew Sam would see through him, and Sam was scared, scared that something was beginning that Dean wasn't going to let him help with. Sam tried to say something, but he couldn't figure out exactly what to say. It was Dean that spoke first, however.

"I want you to know something, ok?" Dean was talking quietly, like he had to push himself to say this and restrain himself from saying too much at the same time, "I want to tell you something and I just, I just want you to hear it and that's it ok?" Sam felt the air thicken, and whether it was with tension or emotion he couldn't tell. He nodded even though Dean still wasn't looking at him, and he listened while his brother continued.

"You...you're my brother. And-and my best friend. And I'm always going to take care of you, and I'm never gonna let anything hurt you. I just," Dean took a breath, and Sam found it hard to keep standing when he heard the tremble in that breath, "I just want to tell you...just once that-that I..." Sam could feel his eyes getting hot, and he suddenly wanted to tell Dean not to say anything else, that he didn't have to, that Sam knew and that he did too. But Dean seemed unable to say it, and he kept going as if he hadn't been about to, "and I'll never just leave you alone," Dean suddenly lifted his gaze, and if Sam had been less of a man he might have had to step back from it, because Dean's eyes were so filled with every kind of meaning that it was hard to see, "and I will always, _always_ come back. Ok?" Dean was looking at him, waiting for a response, and all Sam could do was nod, even though he wanted to say something, even though he wanted to shout and yell and demand Dean explain what the heck was starting, where the heck he was going, and what the heck did he _mean_ he would come back? Sam just nodded, and before he could find it within himself to do anything else, Dean had turned and left, shutting the door behind him and leaving the room much too quiet.

It was about thrity seconds before he started to panic.

Sam felt like the world was whirling around him, and he didn't bother to grab a jacket, only his gun before he burst out of the room, expecting to hear the rumble of the Impala driving off into the night.

Outside, it was quiet. The Impala was where they'd parked it. In fact, Sam reached into his pocket and realized he had the keys.

With a sudden burst of inspiration, Sam dashed back inside and pulled up his online history, scrolling down as far as it would go and settling on the very last recorded visit, a mapquest link from just over five months ago. He clicked on the link and saw the address that Anna had given him before they'd known she was from another world. The number itself didn't exist here, but the _street _did.

Sam didn't even turn his computer off before he ran out and jumped into the Impala. He tore out of the parking lot, certain that he would find Dean somewhere along the street named Norwich.

The street where Anna used to live in a dimension they could never hope to reach.


	3. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The wick of the black candle lit quickly, the flame larger than was natural for it to be.

Dean barely paid the odd flame heed as he set it in place at the edge of the circle he kneeled in.

The lot was big and bare, the kind of dirt field that was sat bored and dusty before real estate laid foundations to cover with cookie cutter homes for the coming flood of future home-owners.

There were no homes along this stretch of road. Norwich Drive was nothing but dirt lots and a few sparse weeds.

Dean hadn't really expected much more.

He continued his preparations, laying out perfectly round stones that along the near-perfect outline of a circle he'd drawn and placed himself inside of. He counted in mutters to himself as he placed each rock down.

"...thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three. One, two..." He counted to thirty-three three times. The circle was surrounded now.

Swiveling carefully, so as not to disturb his perfect circle, he made a swift check of everything around him.

The circle was carefully, measured, three feet in radius. Ninety-nine stones that were each three centimeters across lay evenly on the circle's outline, making three sets of thirty-three. Also evenly spaced just inside the circle's outline were three black candles. On each candle was carved the number 33.

Dean blew out a breath then clenched his jaw.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

He ran a hand over his stubbled face and through his hair.

"What are you doing, Dean?" he asked himself aloud.

It had been about five weeks after Ohio when he'd come up with the idea. Sam was just beginning to like driving at that time, Dean could see it. That was good, he'd thought.

Dean didn't care much for driving anymore.

They'd been in one of the Carolina's - he couldn't remember which one - and it had kind of just come upon him while Sam was ordering them food from the same kind of grungy establishment they always seemed to end up at. He'd been thinking about her, naturally; he thought about her alot. He felt weak and stupid for it. But this thought, this inspiration, it was almost as if he hadn't come up with it himself at all. It was like reading a sign, or hearing an ad, because the idea was so foreign and ridiculous that he would never have considered it otherwise.

What if death was one-dimensional?

He'd shaken it off, hating the flare of emotion that had sprung up and flushed through him. It was stupid, he told himself, wishful thinking to think that Anna could be alive somewhere, whole and breathing and beautiful in some dimension that was beyond his reach. It ached to think of her at all.

Sam had asked him if he was alright when he hadn't touched his food. He brushed him off and forced down his rubbery country-fried chicken.

But he couldn't stop. Once the idea was planted, he couldn't keep it from growing. It ate at him, gnawing at the edges of his mind until he was sure he would snap, because it was driving him crazy. Anna was dead, he hadn't saved her, he hadn't kept her alive, he'd left her alone to die...

But Dean had suddenly wanted to be sure, _needed_ to know absolutely. He had an intense desperation to know for certain that he hadn't just abandoned her without checking every option. He couldn't take it if she was out there in her own world, and he was stuck with the memory of being too late, too hesitant, too far away, too empty. He didn't want to believe that burning her massacred body had been the end of it all.

It had made him sick, after a while. Sam hadn't been too concerned, because a lot of people get summer colds. Dean knew, though. He knew what the worry and the secrecy was doing to him. He knew that sooner or later, he was going to have to spill his guts or do something about the possibilities swimming in his head, because he knew that despite how illogical or unfounded they might be, he had to know.

He had to find out if Anna had survived in her own dimension. And he knew then that he was losing it.

It had been simple, really. Sam was easy to distract. When there was something for his little brother to research, he would sneak off to another computer or another section, reading up on the Demon, numerology, and inter-dimensional theory. It was long and hard work, more so because he had to hide it.

He wasn't sure why, but he didn't want Sam to know.

Showers became opportunities too. When Sam was in the bathroom, Dean had free reign on the laptop, and he was careful to have the computer off and away before Sam came back into the room.

He was sure Sammy couldn't see a difference.

And his impossible ideas weren't seeming so impossible anymore. Things were fitting into place, facts were coming together and making sense, and it was mid-August when he'd realized he knew everything he needed to know.

Dean knew then, that he would have to make a decision.

He knew what to do, he knew how to do it, and little by little, he'd begun to collect the things he'd need to do it. He'd found a job in California, close enough to keep Sam from suspicion of his plans. He would be gone a day, maybe two. There was just one problem.

He couldn't take Sam with him.

And that was the most difficult thing he had to consider. The brothers had hardly been apart at all in almost two years, much less the last five months. He didn't want to leave Sammy, he needed to make sure his brother was safe, and he needed to be there to keep him safe.

That was why he'd left Anna in the first place.

It was a long four weeks before Dean could bring himself to decide. Even if he could take Sammy with him, there was no guarantee that it would work anyway; anything could go wrong. He pushed that fact to the forefront of his mind, choosing to believe that he was protecting his brother this way by leaving him behind, keeping him out of it for his own good.

Two days. Two days wouldn't hurt his little brother.

"Two days," Dean told himself, hesitation gone. He looked around himself, glancing into the darkness when he heard the rumble of a car driving along the adjacent road. He turned back to his immediate surroundings, lit only by the flicker light of the black candles.

He would come back. He'd promised. No matter what he found, if he found anything, if he could get there at all, he would come back. _I promised_, he told himself, _I promised Sammy_.

Dean reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a long paragraph scribbled on it in a strange language.

On the back of it, ignored by him now, was more scribbling; notes taken from some book or website. Some of it read thus:

_Thirty-three/ultimate number of numerology/combines the strongest master numbers:11 + 22 = 33/capable of great changes and wishes/called the Christ number because of power/not all who use it are aware of using it/have to Master choice to make it work/ 33 is the number of choice to make change..._

Kneeling in a circle characterized by 33's, Dean began to read, the words sounding rough and unintelligible in the strange language.

He'd made his decision, his choice. He was completing this ritual. He was going to try and travel through the dimensions.

He could only hope that Anna was there to make it worth what it was costing him.

* * *

Sam was cussing out loud, angry and frustrated that he'd taken a wrong street twice. He really wished he'd taken more than a glance at the MapQuest directions.

Finally seeing the sign bearing the name Norwich Dr., he pulled the Impala to the curb across from it and got out, careful not to slam the door. He stepped quickly and lightly across the empty street, and when he turned the corner onto Norwich, he found himself midway along a lengthy, newly paved road lined with dirt lots perfectly proportioned for new homes to be built upon.

A good eighty yards up the street, a soft and slightly jumpy glow caught his attention.

"Dean," Sam muttered before heading toward the light, running almost silently in a stealthy crouch, wondering what the heaping heck his brother was up to.

He was about thirty feet away when he caught sight of the circle and candles. He squinted, seeing that there were markings in the wax; a number…33.

33.

33.

33.

_Oh my god._ Something clicked in Sam's head, a switch that suddenly let his mind flash through several images and memories of the past five months in rapid succession while he called out to his brother, sprinting towards the circle that Dean was kneeling in, his back to Sam.

The flashes mixed with Sam's thoughts, rushing through his head in the space of a second.

Dean closing the laptop too quickly when Sam came in the room.

_Today's date is October 3, which is like it being the 33__rd__ of September_.

Dean taking off in the library to research something secret.

_This street is where Anna lived in her dimension, that lot is where her house would be_.

Dean questioning the number three on their motel room door.

_The demon is Temelechus, whose powers of teleportation are rooted in numerology. _

Dean promising that he would come back.

_He's trying to leave, to go to her dimension._

Dean in a circle of rocks and candles, chanting something he read off of a paper.

"DEAN! N-"

Before Sam was finished shouting the plea, there was a loud sound that was oddly metallic in quality, like a sheet of metal being broken or sliced, and it drowned out Sam's voice. In the back of his frantic mind, Sam was unconsciously expecting a flash of light, maybe a small earthquake, or even a rushing wind to join the noise. He expected to be blinded momentarily, or thrown back by some unexplained force; anything proportional to the magnitude of the situation, something dramatic or at least exceptionally unusual.

Instead, Dean just winked out of his vision, disappearing into thin air with the breaking sound, and Sam hadn't blinked or felt a breeze or seen any light other than the fire from the candles.

Sam skidded up to the ritual's circle, wide-eyed and panting, before falling to his knees with a moan and reaching a hand into the circle's center, where the loose dirt was an good three inches lower, a ditch in comparison to the flat earth that surrounded it outside of the circle of stones.

The dirt that had been there a moment ago was gone.

Dean was gone.

Sam closed his eyes tight, sat on his knees in the middle of the dirt lot, and tried not to sob.

"Dean," he whispered shakily to the quiet California night, "what have you done…"


	4. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Anna pressed her foot down on the accelerator, peeling out of the rounded driveway and tearing down Bradley Street as fast as her car would take her. She drove recklessly, too fast considering the fact that everything was out of focus, her vision blurred by the tears that wouldn't stop coming. She hitched back another sob, angry at herself for losing it like this. It was lucky she had the streets memorized, or she would've crashed more than once.

_It wasn't really her anymore. You couldn't just let her keep hurting people. You had to do it. _She tried to justify the fact that she had just destroyed the spirit of her own Grandmother, to convince herself that she'd done the right thing. It wasn't working.

Anna slammed a fist against the steering wheel, willing the tears to stop momentarily, but not bothering to wipe her face dry. She'd be crying some more anyway when she got home.

She slowed her car to a reasonable speed, sighing heavily as she turned onto her street, the corner of it bearing a sign that boasted "Norwich Drive". She parked along the curb and pushed down her emergency brake. She left her hand there on the handle, looking at it for a second. She breifly recalled the feel of another car's emercency brake, and her memory brought the smell of leather and the sound of deep laughter to her mind. She blinked once, hard, and pushed the images away. Face stony, she got out of her car and grabbed her duffel from the trunk before she headed up the brick walkway to the front door of her house.

The fairly new two-story was broad and tan, with a small lawn that needed trimming. The windows all had shutters on the inside, the unmistakable gray box of an alarm system was set on the far side, and the sounds of a running poolfilter hinted as to what was in the backyard. The three-car garage doors were shut, and judging from the spider webs at the corners of them, the garage itself was rarely front door's brown finish was scratched around the shiny black door handle and lock, as if both had recently been removed inexpertly and replaced.

Anna dragged her feet up the walway, hating the knowledge that the house would be empty when she got inside, but perhaps it was better that way; nobody needed to see her go on a real crying jag. With her duffel still slung over her left shoulder, she fumbled her keys with her right hand.

_Side door, office, gate....what was that? _She paused in her search for the right key and listened, stilll facing the door and jiggling the keychain in her hand a bit, but listening intently. _There_. She heard the familiar sound of an almost silent footstep. Another one.

Her expression hardened and she purposely made sure to keep her shoulders relaxed. She made a fist around her key chain, so that the keys were sticking out from in between her fingers, and she waited for the quiet steps to get close enough. She reached toward the lock as if she was about to unlock it.

Gravel crunched under a light footstep no more than three feet behind her, a nearly unintelligible sound.

She whirled and struck out, hard. Her eyes widened when she saw the face she was punching, but she didn't hesitate and she didn't stop herself.

If anything, the sight of Dean Winchester's shocked expression made her all the more furious.

* * *

Everything was black.

It was inky, like dyed liquid; a stain of darkness. He blinked. there were spots in the black, little twinkling specks. _Stars_, his mind informed him. Stars? But then that meant he was on his back. Outside. On the ground. _Why am I flat on my back on the ground at night? _Dean blinked again, and he became aware of the rest of him, and he did a mental checklist before he attempted moving. He was still clothed so that was good. He could feel his jacket collar fluttering lethargically in an oddly warm breeze, and he could hear a slight grating and crunching sound every other second. Pulling himself up, feeling heavy for some reason, he managed a half sitting position before he froze.

He was in the middle of a driveway on a residential street, a large, tan house in front of him with shuttered windows and a brick walkway to the left...

A walkway that a young woman was trudging up to the house, just far away enough that she wouldn't see him in the darkness.

Dean's stomach dropped to his feet and his heart leapt into his throat. His lungs suddenly constricted and his limbs failed to obey him as he recalled what he had been doing and where he must be.

_The street...candles...thirty-three...Sammy...oh my god._

"Oh my god," Dean gasped out, and he suddenly wanted to cry out, to scream, to yell for her to turn around, to make it real and certain, so that he could stop hoping and wishing and hating himself, so that he could see if it was her, please let it be her, it _had_ to be her-

"Wait," he breathed, again unable to make it louder than the smallest whipser, and he scrambled to get up; she was already out of sight, at the house's door now.

Dean didn't know what his expression looked like, he didn't think about collecting himself, about the fact that the knees of his jeans were dirty and his eyes were wild. He didn't care that his mouth was hanging open and and he was blinking back warm, salty, wetness. He just went, not thinking about his steps as he walked toward her, wanting to run but afraid to, somehow only able to stride slowly and cautiously.

He rounded the edge and saw her, even if it was just the back of her. The porch light showed the front door and she was fumbling the keys to put in the lock, a dirty duffel bag over her left shoulder. Her hair was dark, longer than he remembered, and that made him panic at first. But then he took in the way she stood, and he recognized it. She stood in her snug jeans with one leg straight and the other bent, the shoe balancing on its toes. Her head titled slightly to the side, and her shoulders were relaxed under her blue jacket. He could just see the edge of a dark green t-shirt underneath, and her hair played in waves, hiding what he might've seen of her face.

Dean found he couldn't speak, and he didn't know what he would've said anyway. He stepped closer to her, afraid to make any sound, afraid that she might turn around and be someone else, someone strange and foreign, someone that would never be as beautiful or warm or comfortable as she was.

He was just over two feet away when he stopped, not sure what to do, to say, how to ask if it was her at all, if even she remembered, if she hated him, if she knew how sorry he was, that he loved her...

A second passed.

Then she whirled so fast she blurred and he barely had time to comprehend the movement before he realized a key-filled fist was coming straight at his face.

"WHOA!" he barely stepped back in time, but she didn't stop whirling, and her foot followed her fist, then another fist, and the foot again, and they were fighting, and he didn't know _why_ they were fighting, but she was _really_ good at it, and she cussed at him, and he didn't know what to _do_ because she hit like a two-hundred pound man, and _oh man that one hurt_, and he ducked and blocked but didn't strike back because it was _her_ for crying out loud and _OW!_

"Anna, Anna wait!"

"YOU FREAKY SON OF A-"

"OW! What are y-"

"-UNNATURAL PEICE OF-"

"It's _me_, it's Dean! Anna!"

They parted and stood several feet away from eachother, circling. Anna was like a cat, her movements lithe and smooth, crouching in a predatory way. Dean however, had never felt more awkward in his life. His instincts told him to get into a protective stance, use his height advantage, prepare to swing at her from the left and sweep a leg under her feet; the rest of him was wondering what the heaping heck was going on.

"Anna-"

"Shutup." Dean stared at her. They kept circling, and he put his hands out in a peacemaking guesture.

"Anna, wha-"

"I said SHUTUP," and then, seemignly as an afterthought, she called him something that would have made Sam blush.

"Anna, it's me, Dean. What're you talking ab-"

"Say one more word and I swear you will have so much more to worry about that what I do to your remains." Dean's mouth fell open. He started to tell her that she was crazy, but he thought better of it, shutting his mouth with a click. She still had her keys in her fist, after all.

"Now," Anna ground out between clenched teeth, "why don't you go back to haunting whatever little shack it is that you've grown oh so attatched too,"she slowly pulled a rather new looking sawed-off from her duffel. Dean's eyes widened as she continued, "and I'll meet you there after I've salted and burned your bones."

Dean decided he needed to say something before she shot him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Anna I'm not a ghost or spirit or anything!" he chuckled once, nervously, "I mean, how would I make myself look like me just to get at you? Huh?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," she snapped back, and Dean was taken aback by the venom in her voice, something that seemed very wrong coming from the face that was so beautiful even furious. then he took in the meaning of her words. _It wouldn't be the first time? What is she talking about?_

He took an unconscious step toward her, he moved without meaning to, and she raised the gun to chest level and aimed, her finger inching toward the trigger. Dean's mind suddenly went into overdrive, and he thought lightening fast. _She thinks I'm a spirit or something that deserves to be shot, she's aiming the gun, she doesn't believe what I say, she's going to shoot me, I need to give her some proof, holy heck think faster Dean she's going to kill you, what proof could I possibly - Oh._

And in the space of a blink, it was clear what Anna needed to see to know that it was really Dean. It was clear what proof Dean could offer that Anna would take seriously and not write off as a trick.

Dean reached his hand down the neck of his t-shirt and pulled out the chain that hung around his neck, the chain that had hung there since April, the chain that Anna had given him, a chain bearing a broken "Schlage" key.

Anna's finger's halted half-squeezed on the rigger of her sawed-off. Dean kept very still, simply holding the necklace where she could see it and it's pendant.

She stared at him, unmoving, maybe not even breathing. The night seemed to quiet around them, as if the pregancy of the pause were more than just the two of them, more than just two dimensions colliding, more than two lives meeting, more than a reunion of the most meaningful kind.

Time seemed to freeze and Dean allowed himself to take in the realization while Anna took in her own.

She was alive.

She was alive.

She was alive.

And Dean had no desire to cry, no worry or doubt to speak of. His Anna was there, and she knew it was him, and he was throughly, incadescantly happy.

He dropped the necklace and moved to pull the girl he loved into his arms.

* * *

Anna was furious. Hot rage rushed through her as she stared down the _thing_ that was pretending to be Dean, just like that spirit in Corona had done not two months ago. That had been one of the hardest days, seeing him and knowing that it wasn't _him_. She could still remember how it had ached...

She didn't hesitate this time, didn't allow herself to feel a thing other than the absolute anger, using it to fuel her energy, a kind of venom boiling like acid in her mouth as she spat words at the thing and reached for her gun.

She didn't bother grabbing the one loaded with salt. She went straight for the sawed-off with iron rounds.

She'd been about to fire when he moved, his hands going down his shirt of all places and bringing up something small and metallic.

She froze instantly, her finger half-queezed recognizing it without having to think or remember.

And the world dropped from around her.

She stared, and she could hear a ringing in her ears, and she couldn't seem to breathe, or _move_ for that matter.

Her necklace twirled lightly, the broken key hanging from it caught the porchlight and gave a dull reflection.

And she couldn't help herself, because there was no way anything could have that necklace, no one even knew...

She met his eyes. She saw the truth there.

It was really him. Dean was there, three feet away from her, real, whole. _Here_.

She let the gun fall out of her hands which she realized were shaking, and didn't hear it clatter to the floor, her ears were still ringing. She stumbled, and fell back a step until she was pressed against the front door, still facing him, still staring, still unable to say or think or _do_ anything. She felt herself sliding down the door until she was seated on the doormat, her legs awkwardly bent beneath her trembling body and she never took her eyes away.

He spoke, and now that she knew it was really his voice, it seemed like the most glorious sound she'd ever been blessed to hear in her life.

"It's really me, Anna. It's me."

She hiccupped once, a half-choked sob, and he crossed over to her in two swift strides, kneeling and pausing with his face just inches from hers. He stared much as she did, except he was wearing a small smile. He brought his warm hand up to her face and wiped away a tear that had just streamed down her cheek with his index finger.

At his touch, Anna found the ability to move again, and she closed her eyes, exhaling before she threw her arms around his neck, pulling him close. He wrapped his own arms tight around her, holding her while she sobbed into the shoulder of his leather jacket. He didn't shush her, didn't say anything, just held her and brushed his lips against her cheek.

And they sat there on the ground outside of her front door wrapped in each other's arms, Anna clutching him and sobbing while Dean memorized the feel of her, the smell of her, the reality of her with him.

For Dean, his relief was in finding that Anna was alive.

For Anna, Dean finding her made it worth being alive.


	5. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The inside was not what he expected. At all.

Not in a millions stinkin' years.

Dean didn't know how long they sat like that, Anna crying and Dean wiping her tears. All he knew was that she'd eventually calmed, and they stood wordlessly together before she grabbed her keys to unlock the door.

He'd had to do it for her in the end; her hands were still shaking too much to aim properly.

They walked in together, with his arm around her back and her leaning into him. It felt natural, as if they'd been this close to each other for years, as if they were accustomed to the mutual touch. It wasn't expected - he had thought her dead for months, and before that they'd never really gotten past hugs, but they fell easily into the togetherness. It just seemed right.

He closed the door behind him when they crossed the threshold, and automatically went to lock it. He blinked. There were four locks. The door knob itself, a dead bolt, a bigger deadbolt, and a heavy metal latch with a chain.

He paused to give her an incredulous and somewhat amused glance. She gave him a watery half-smile back, and he locked everything.

She flipped the light switch on in the entryway and led him through the wide open space. The walls were white, spaced evenly with large windows and no paint, but the place was not devoid of color. The dark hardwood floor matched the table against the wall, and the wine colored area rug made the place warm and somehow soft. Frames on the walls showed life drawings of people in various period dress, and as he followed her through the dining room into the kitchen he saw that the dining table had no chairs but benches instead with cushions the same color as the rug and decorative candles. Wine red, deep brown, and warm off-white swirled through out the house, a theme that made the place seem comfortable, safe, familiar. It felt like Anna. It felt like...like a home.

But none of these details were what made his eyes bug and his mouth gape.

The second the light turned on he could see the lines. Thick, white lines traced every window, the front door, and every air conditioning vent. It was salt; plastic tubing filled with salt. Even the windows themselves were...different. They might've been stained glass the way the panes were divided, but they had no stain, only patterns, intricate and beautiful, but recognizable; protective symbols, sigils, devil's traps, pentagrams, with each window bearing the same word in the center, barely decipherable amidst the design: _christo_. _Holy crap,_ _this place is a demonic bomb shelter..._He nearly stumbled as she brought him through the dining room into the kitchen, the sight of so much protection stunning him. It took him a moment to refocus enough to take in the new room.

The kitchen was the only room so far with paint on its walls. Soft cream yellow melted into a light mocha as the kitchen morphed into a living room complete with a large L-shaped couch and what looked like a fifty-inch wide screen TV above a tiled fireplace. A small desk with a computer was set off to the side near the opening that led to the stairs on the other end of the living space.

The salt-tubing lined the fireplace as well, and it was odd how they didn't look awkward at all, instead seeming like decorations. _Are those surround sound speakers in the ceiling? Holy heck..._He could see that the stairs turned at a sharp angle, leading to the second story of the house.

"Wow..." he breathed, and then he realized Anna was looking at him. They were standing next to the island in the kitchen, still holding hands, but she was looking at him uncertainly, almost fearfully, and it confused him for a moment. It was like she was waiting for his opinion, his approval. He smiled an assuring smile at her, and she seemed to relax.

The house was very quiet. They stood there, and it occurred to him that he didn't really know what to do next.

Apparently, neither did she. _Oh well_, he thought; _at least she's still holding my hand_. He immediately felt childish at the thought, and had a sudden image of a pimply seventh grader at a school dance wondering what to say to his date._ Aw man..._

"So how you been?" he blurted and immediately felt like hiding inside the fridge. The look she gave him was full of exasperation; he was strongly reminded of Sam.

Feeling like a massive idiot, he was about to blurt something to cover up his lame conversation starter when he noticed that there was something red on Anna's face. He blinked. The red trickle went down the side of her face and matched the color of the lines on her left arm exactly, mixing with the rising blotches of purple.

Anna seemed to react to the sudden panic in his face, because she mirrored it.

"What? Dean, what is it?!" He grabbed her and pulled her to the kitchen table, sitting her in a chair and leaning anxiously to examine the cut on her head just as he managed to remember how to form words.

"You're bleeding! Oh my god..." Anna's tensed shoulders slumped at his words, and he vaguely noticed her roll her eyes at him. Again, he was reminded of Sam.

"Dean-"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't think I hit you-"

"No, it's-"

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my-"

"Dean!" He found his wrists were kept from moving by her strong hands, "Stop it," Okay, _really_ strong hands and arms. And she was using that voice that made him think of his dad. "Calm down. You didn't hurt me. Stop freaking out." She forced his hands away from her head and looked at him. He was a bit taken aback by the way her arms flexed when she did that. It was actually _really_ attractive.

"What - then how did you...?" he asked, perplexed. She sighed at him. _What, are you stinkin' channeling Sam right now?_

"Angry spirit," she supplied, "Threw me around a bit." She shrugged. Dean felt like he'd just blown a gasket, or maybe had a heart attack, but either way he wanted very badly to start yelling, and so was therefore surprised by how very calm and normally volumed his voice was when he responded.

"You - you were hunting?" His words were quiet, almost conversational sounding. Anna sighed again.

"Yes." There was silence for a small second.

"With who?"

"Nobody."

"Alone?"

"Yes, Dean. I've been hunting for almost five months." The silence lasted longer this time.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Look," she stood and reached around him into the cupboard by the fridge and pulled out a first aid kit, "I'm fine. I'll just clean up and then we can talk okay? I think we have a lot to talk about." _Um, understatement of the century, and where the heaping heck do you think you're going?_

She got about half a step away before he deftly swiped the box from her hand. He glared at her, and pointed to the couch.

"Sit." She rolled her eyes again, but started to grin. She strode obediently to the couch while he followed. He was sure he caught her saying the words 'silly' and 'cute' under her breath.

He had to struggle not to smile; her grinning made him happier than he'd been in a long time, and he was again struck with the realization that she was _here_; _he_ was here, and she was alive, sitting on the couch, looking at him with her dark eyes and her lips slightly parted and her hair falling perfectly around her face...

"Are you gonna sit down or stare at me all night?" Dean blinked himself out of his reverie, shaking his head to clear it as he moved to sit beside Anna, opening the kit and rummaging for what he needed to clean the cut on her head.

They were quiet for a while. It seemed that neither of them knew exactly where to start. Dean decided to go for it.

"So," he began while he wiped the trickle of dried blood away from the skin of her cheek, "uh..." He forgot what he'd been about to say. _Dangit._ He immediately felt like an idiot again.

"My parents are gone," she said rather suddenly, her eyes staring past him at nothing, her face blank save for the slight furrowing of her brow. He started at the tone her voice had taken. It was soft, not hesitant, but very nearly flat, as if she were merely mentioning that she'd forgotten that she needed to change a light bulb.

"What, uh, what do you mean 'gone'?" he asked, finding his own voice had softened considerably. She still didn't meet his eyes, and he continued to clean the scrapes on her arm.

"I woke up about a week after," she said in that same soft voice, and he knew she meant after she'd been sort-of-killed by the demon, "and the house was quieter than usual. My mom's usually up early and making noise. I went to wake my dad up. He never hears the alarm. I knocked on their door, but I figured he was just still asleep." Dean could see it all happening in his head; Anna waking up confused, knocking on the door to her parent's bedroom, opening it when no one answered...he glanced at her face quickly, noting her still unfocused eyes that looked more wet than normal, and he pressed his lips in a tight line, hating that she was obviously remembering something painful.

"I went in, and I didn't really get it at first, ya know? It took me almost a full minute to realize the red on the walls was blood, and the room was cold because the window was shattered. I tried not to scream; I didn't want to scare my brother. I went and got him from his room, made him go to the neighbor's house before I called the police. My parents weren't there," she added, and she finally met his eyes, her face still oddly blank, and it hurt him to see her like this, "just the blood. And sulfur, but _I_ found that. The police didn't notice. Nobody notices anything anymore," she surprised him by suddenly looking livid, and he felt his own expression melting into one of concern, but he didn't interrupt; he sensed she needed to tell him this way, without stopping.

"Ever since...since I came back, it's like something broke the barrier, and everything that never existed in my world suddenly found a way in. And this town, this place is a magnet for anything evil. Just this month I've salted and burned forty-seven bodies of angry spirits just in Riverside County. I've taken down two revenants, a witch, and a werewolf."

Dean was finding it very hard not to freak out. An image of Anna standing small and breakable in front of a massive, snarling werewolf flashed in his mind, and Dean had to close his eyes and focus on breathing normally to keep himself calm, _she's fine, she's not hurt, she's okay_.

"Tonight I had to go after my own grandmother," she whispered. Dean's eyes flew open, and he suddenly had a sensation of tasting something bad in his mouth as he kept his hands on Anna's shoulders, not sure what else to do while she kept talking.

"She was hurting people," Ana's voice cracked for the first time, faltering, "My grandpa and his new wife. I had to stop her," She looked up at Dean again, her expression morphing until she was pleading, almost begging him to understand, "I was the only one that knew how, that she was afraid of birds, that she was connected t-to the locket, and that 'Happy Birthday' was h-her favorite song..." she was gripping his sleeve with her left hand, struggling not to cry, he could tell, "and I just...I just did it. I stopped her. And she's gone." Anna closed her eyes then, and Dean wanted to pull her into a hug, and tell her it was okay and that he understood, but he knew there was more to say, and he couldn't do anything until she was done, because she needed to tell him as much as he needed to hear it.

"And Brian..." Anna was crying in earnest now, sobbing between her next words, and Dean recognized the name of Anna's best friend, recalled how she loved him like her own family, and he knew what was coming, "h-he was helping me so, so much...he worked at th-the hospital...nurs-sing..." more sobbing, she wiped at her face with one hand, but the tears kept coming, "he-he cleaned me up after hunts, never asked me w-why...I told him not to ask...and his sister v-visited him with-with her b-baby, and I didn't, didn't think, I-I didn't _know_..." Dean was holding her close now, and it was breaking him as she cried heavily into his shoulder, sobbing the phrase 'six-months-old' over and over again. He knew what had happened; the six-month-old child, probably sleeping near his mother at Brian's house, wherever his house was, and the shock of a stranger near the crib, the scream of a woman pinned to the ceiling, the heat of the fire that would have burned the house to the ground with everyone inside...

"A-a-all of them! His mom and d-dad and him and his-his sister and the, the ba-by..." she couldn't make anymore words, she was crying too hard, and Dean found that he wanted very badly to cry with her, hating what she'd been through, hating that he hadn't been with her while it was happening, hating that she was broken and he had no way to fix it.

* * *

Anna remembered as she cried.

She remembered seeing her parents the night before they disappeared, remembered having to explain to Josh that his parents were gone, knowing they were dead but unsure how to let her brother know, she remembered the life insurance company visiting and receiving the money, using it to protect the house, to buy guns, to buy salt, and to pay for Josh to go to school.

She remembered singing 'Happy Birthday' with her grandma when she was little, remembered when she'd received the locket for Christmas, remembered promising never to lose it or break it.

She remembered getting the call that Brian's house had burned down, that everyone had been killed, turning to gaze in shock at his guitar still in the living room of the house that was hers now, his guitar that was like another limb for him, his guitar that he'd forgotten when he'd been over two days before to babysit her brother. She remembered how even Josh had cried when she told him, how he'd fallen asleep with his arm around the guitar by his bed, how she'd taken it that night to a dirt lot and burned it, crying and hating herself but knowing that she wouldn't be able to do it later if he came back, a transparent spirit charred and dangerous in death as he would never have been in life.

She pressed her face into Dean's shoulder and balled for all she was worth, hating herself for her weakness but so incredibly grateful and even happy that Dean was there, his arms around her, holding her and kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair as he murmured assurances in her ear, his voice calming and loving and so _safe_. She had missed him so much, had worried so much, had been so sure she would never get to see him again, that it might've all been in her head, that she might just be insane...

And suddenly she was grabbing his face and kissing him, kissing him like she wanted to kiss him that day when she sent him with Sam, kissing him like she should have when she'd last had the opportunity, kissing him because she wanted him and needed him and loved him and…

And he kissed her back, and he was eager but gentle, and her face was wet but the tears were over, and he twisted his fingers into her hair and held her against him, and in that moment she didn't care that she was dirty and bruised and scared, because she was totally and irrevocably happy that Dean was here with her, the way it should be. She forgot that her brother was spending the night at his friend Conner's house again, she forgot that her parents and best friend were gone and her life was a mess, she forgot it all because nothing else mattered, not demons or spirits or brothers or friends, because there was Anna and there was Dean and there was nothing else, because they were nothing without each other anyway.

* * *

The door was thick and hard. When she knocked, the sound seemed to echo strangely, and it made her head hurt more.

She breathed heavily, trying to make the world stop swaying, and she moaned softly, waiting for the door to open. _Please...just open, please._ The sound of a lock turning nearly brought her to tears, she was so relieved.

The door was open a few seconds while Brian stared at her with his mouth slightly open. Tall and built, he was wearing his work out clothes, obviously just home from the gym, and his body showed that he spent plenty of his time there. His dark hair was messy and his dark eyes were wide as he took in the sight of Anna swaying in his doorway, blood coming down her face and seeping into her shirt. Then everything moved very quickly at once.

"Oh my GOD!" Brian cried much too loud, and she barely had time to wince before Brian was picking her up and carrying her swiftly across his living room, the door slamming behind him, cussing so intently Anna might have taken offense had she not been distracted by the pounding in her head. Brian laid her down on the couch, then swept around the room, up the stairs, through the kitchen, back into the living room carrying gauze and alcohol and towels and a pot - _what's with the pot?_ - and water bottles and some sharp objects that didn't look very fun.

"Bri...Brian." _Please don't freak out, please, please don't throw a fit._

"I know Anna, I gotcha, gosh you're so stupid, _why_ do you do this to me, what the heck were you _doing_, oh man you're bleeding a lot, it's okay honey, I'm here, you're okay, I've gotcha, you're such an _idiot_, I can't believe this, hey stay with me Anna, open your eyes, that's right, good girl, _dangit_ you're such a jerk!"

Anna would've thrown something at him, by her head was hurting a lot.

"My head hurts...lot." _Dude, shut up already._

"I know, I know Anna, I'm gonna make it stop, I don't think you need a hospital, but dangit if you keep this up I swear one day I won't be able to fix you up, does that hurt, I'm sorry, you need stitches, where's my suturing needle, here drink this," he gave her a bottle of what she could've sworn was tequila, "that's it, okay this is gonna hurt and I'm sorry honey, why do you _do_ this to me, show up bleeding on my doorstep, nearly gave me a stroke, _why_ do I put up with you, drink some more, aw please don't do this anymore, you're my best friend Anna and I love you and everything but gosh you bleed in waterfalls, stop moving."

"Brian," she managed to grab his wrist, her vision swimming awkwardly while her brain began to haze from the tequila. He paused in his frantic monologue, meeting her eyes with as much concern and frustration and love as any father or brother or friend could only imagine having. She focused for just a second, and looked at him with the look he said should be illegal, the look that he could never say no to, the look that she'd given him every other time she'd come to him bleeding or bruised.

"Thank you," Anna said. Brian closed his eyes and nodded, and as Anna closed her own eyes, she heard him speaking to her as she passed out.

"Anything for my best buddy...god you're so stupid…" and he kept up a steady stream of profanity while he stitched her head up...

Anna drifted from her dreaming, feeling her self waking up, sensing the sunlight behind her eyelids, but she fought to stay asleep. She wanted to stay in the dream, where Brian wasn't dead, where it wasn't her fault, where she wasn't alone.

She gave up, giving in to the morning. With eyes still closed, she frowned, stretching, and froze.

This didn't feel like her blankets.

Too small, her back was against something, there shouldn't be so much light.

And she could hear a sizzling sound coming from somewhere to her left.

She bolted up right, eyes flying open, hand reaching automatically for the handgun on her bedside table, and she brought it up aiming...

No gun. She had no gun in her hands, and she was on her living room couch, aiming without a weapon at the salt outlined window.

She dropped her hands and groggily assessed her surroundings. She looked down at herself, seeing a blanket draped over her, and she tried to remember why she wasn't in her bedroom. She turned blearily toward the sizzling sound to see Dean hovering over a frying pan in the kitchen, the smell of what was undoubtedly bacon reaching her. Memories of the night before washed over her, and she felt the same sense of safety and relief and piercing emotion that she had then. She sighed, and rubbed at her eyes, trying to wake up.

"Dean? You cookin'?" He turned and grinned a bit sheepishly at her, and dangit if he didn't look incredibly attractive holding a spatula.

"Well, trying; it's been awhile since I've cooked anything. Bacon and eggs okay?"

She grinned at him, climbing off the couch and going to examine his efforts, which looked incredibly appetizing. She realized she was starved.

"Awesome," she replied, hugging his side momentarily before going to grab plates from the cupboard.

* * *

It was ten'o'clock when they sat to eat.

Dean couldn't stop smiling.

It felt incredibly weird to be eating a breakfast he actually cooked in an actual house at an actual kitchen table with a girl he could actually see himself living with. On second thought, weird didn't even cover it.

But at the same time, it felt so incredibly relaxing, and he couldn't find it in himself to worry what they would do next or if they could keep this up or anything, because he couldn't get his mind to work past the fact that Anna was sitting across from him eating his cooking.

Apparently, his temporary blissfulness made him temporarily stupid too.

"So what happened?" The question popped out of his mouth without him meaning it to. _No, don't ask that, you idiot! I didn't mean it, Anna, I don't want to know._

"What do you mean?" she looked at him quizzically, chewing her bacon.

"In Ohio, after I left. What happened?" _Shutup! What am I doing? Please don't answer, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot..._

She froze, mid-chew. Then swallowed, staring at her plate. She didn't look angry or uncomfortable, just surprised. Dean meanwhile, was inwardly blowing gaskets again.

"Are...are you sure you want to know?" She looked at him, and _what is that look, it that skepticism? Worry? Concern?_

Dean's head nodded of its own accord. _No. Please, no. I don't, really._ Anna looked at him, long and hard, then she shrugged and started talking casually, eating her food and acting like this was a conversation as normal as the weather.

"It was fine for a while. I mean, I was scared, but mostly only because I was afraid something might happen to you and Sam. I kept thinking something was gonna go wrong, like there was something right in front of my nose that I was missing. Then it just kind of clicked in my head; I dunno how I knew, but I realized the room number was 22 and I just knew that was bad news, like some psychic warning or something, I guess. But it was too late of course," Dean was beginning to feel slightly sick, watching Anna talk so calmly about it, eating at the same time, "The demon was already there. The cell phone died and the lights went out, and then the ceiling and floor cracked, breaking the devil's traps. The salt lines got blown around and I thought I knew where it was so I started shooting, but it happened too fast, and I never actually saw it. Threw me around a lot," Anna said holding her last piece of bacon, shrugging again. Dean felt like he may never have any desire to eat ever again, "and then it started to tear me up from the inside, you know what I mean. It was over pretty quickly, so it wasn't that bad."

Dean heard himself make a kind of choking sound, and Anna looked up at him.

"I mean, of course it was awful," she amended, looking somewhat alarmed at whatever expression was on his probably stark white face, "but it wasn't drawn out or anything. I knew I was going to die, though, and I was mainly just sad that I wouldn't see you again. I was afraid to die alone," she was staring off into space again, and Dean was struggling to keep breathing, trying desperately to keep down the four bites of breakfast he'd taken before she told this story, "and then you were there. And I wasn't scare even though I knew I was dying, because you were there with me. You said you didn't know what to do, but I didn't expect you to; I just wanted you to stay with me. You carried me outside, I think....I remember being inside of the car. Then I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I think that was the worst part. I guess that was when I died. I woke up in my bed, though. It was like I'd never been gone. I thought it was all a dream, at first. But I still had this..."

She pulled his necklace out from her shirt, the bronze amulet hanging innocently from the black leather cord. Dean was still working through the flash of memory he'd gotten when she talked about herself dying. He was trying not to pass out or cry out, trying to stop sweating and clenching his fists, trying to ignore the full plate of thoroughly disgusting-looking food in front of him. He recognized the necklace for what it was, what it would've meant to her these last five months, because it was the same thing her necklace had been for him.

Knowing she'd kept it gave him something, made him feeling some warm emotion that allowed him to calm down and feel okay again.

He met Anna's eyes and saw her small, concerned smile.

He got up, walked around the kitchen table, and wrapped her in his arms, feeling that he might never let go.


	6. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 4

The inside was not what he expected. At all.

Not in a millions stinkin' years.

Dean didn't know how long they sat like that, Anna crying and Dean wiping her tears. All he knew was that she'd eventually calmed, and they stood wordlessly together before she grabbed her keys to unlock the door.

He'd had to do it for her in the end; her hands were still shaking too much to aim properly.

They walked in together, with his arm around her back and her leaning into him. It felt natural, as if they'd been this close to each other for years, as if they were accustomed to the mutual touch. It wasn't expected - he had thought her dead for months, and before that they'd never really gotten past hugs, but they fell easily into the togetherness. It just seemed right.

He closed the door behind him when they crossed the threshold, and automatically went to lock it. He blinked. There were four locks. The door knob itself, a dead bolt, a bigger deadbolt, and a heavy metal latch with a chain.

He paused to give her an incredulous and somewhat amused glance. She gave him a watery half-smile back, and he locked everything.

She flipped the light switch on in the entryway and led him through the wide open space. The walls were white, spaced evenly with large windows and no paint, but the place was not devoid of color. The dark hardwood floor matched the table against the wall, and the wine colored area rug made the place warm and somehow soft. Frames on the walls showed life drawings of people in various period dress, and as he followed her through the dining room into the kitchen he saw that the dining table had no chairs but benches instead with cushions the same color as the rug and decorative candles. Wine red, deep brown, and warm off-white swirled through out the house, a theme that made the place seem comfortable, safe, familiar. It felt like Anna. It felt like...like a home.

But none of these details were what made his eyes bug and his mouth gape.

The second the light turned on he could see the lines. Thick, white lines traced every window, the front door, and every air conditioning vent. It was salt; plastic tubing filled with salt. Even the windows themselves were...different. They might've been stained glass the way the panes were divided, but they had no stain, only patterns, intricate and beautiful, but recognizable; protective symbols, sigils, devil's traps, pentagrams, with each window bearing the same word in the center, barely decipherable amidst the design: _christo_. _Holy crap,_ _this place is a demonic bomb shelter..._He nearly stumbled as she brought him through the dining room into the kitchen, the sight of so much protection stunning him. It took him a moment to refocus enough to take in the new room.

The kitchen was the only room so far with paint on its walls. Soft cream yellow melted into a light mocha as the kitchen morphed into a living room complete with a large L-shaped couch and what looked like a fifty-inch wide screen TV above a tiled fireplace. A small desk with a computer was set off to the side near the opening that led to the stairs on the other end of the living space.

The salt-tubing lined the fireplace as well, and it was odd how they didn't look awkward at all, instead seeming like decorations. _Are those surround sound speakers in the ceiling? Holy heck..._He could see that the stairs turned at a sharp angle, leading to the second story of the house.

"Wow..." he breathed, and then he realized Anna was looking at him. They were standing next to the island in the kitchen, still holding hands, but she was looking at him uncertainly, almost fearfully, and it confused him for a moment. It was like she was waiting for his opinion, his approval. He smiled an assuring smile at her, and she seemed to relax.

The house was very quiet. They stood there, and it occurred to him that he didn't really know what to do next.

Apparently, neither did she. _Oh well_, he thought; _at least she's still holding my hand_. He immediately felt childish at the thought, and had a sudden image of a pimply seventh grader at a school dance wondering what to say to his date._ Aw man..._

"So how you been?" he blurted and immediately felt like hiding inside the fridge. The look she gave him was full of exasperation; he was strongly reminded of Sam.

Feeling like a massive idiot, he was about to blurt something to cover up his lame conversation starter when he noticed that there was something red on Anna's face. He blinked. The red trickle went down the side of her face and matched the color of the lines on her left arm exactly, mixing with the rising blotches of purple.

Anna seemed to react to the sudden panic in his face, because she mirrored it.

"What? Dean, what is it?!" He grabbed her and pulled her to the kitchen table, sitting her in a chair and leaning anxiously to examine the cut on her head just as he managed to remember how to form words.

"You're bleeding! Oh my god..." Anna's tensed shoulders slumped at his words, and he vaguely noticed her roll her eyes at him. Again, he was reminded of Sam.

"Dean-"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't think I hit you-"

"No, it's-"

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my-"

"Dean!" He found his wrists were kept from moving by her strong hands, "Stop it," Okay, _really_ strong hands and arms. And she was using that voice that made him think of his dad. "Calm down. You didn't hurt me. Stop freaking out." She forced his hands away from her head and looked at him. He was a bit taken aback by the way her arms flexed when she did that. It was actually _really_ attractive.

"What - then how did you...?" he asked, perplexed. She sighed at him. _What, are you stinkin' channeling Sam right now?_

"Angry spirit," she supplied, "Threw me around a bit." She shrugged. Dean felt like he'd just blown a gasket, or maybe had a heart attack, but either way he wanted very badly to start yelling, and so was therefore surprised by how very calm and normally volumed his voice was when he responded.

"You - you were hunting?" His words were quiet, almost conversational sounding. Anna sighed again.

"Yes." There was silence for a small second.

"With who?"

"Nobody."

"Alone?"

"Yes, Dean. I've been hunting for almost five months." The silence lasted longer this time.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Look," she stood and reached around him into the cupboard by the fridge and pulled out a first aid kit, "I'm fine. I'll just clean up and then we can talk okay? I think we have a lot to talk about." _Um, understatement of the century, and where the heaping heck do you think you're going?_

She got about half a step away before he deftly swiped the box from her hand. He glared at her, and pointed to the couch.

"Sit." She rolled her eyes again, but started to grin. She strode obediently to the couch while he followed. He was sure he caught her saying the words 'silly' and 'cute' under her breath.

He had to struggle not to smile; her grinning made him happier than he'd been in a long time, and he was again struck with the realization that she was _here_; _he_ was here, and she was alive, sitting on the couch, looking at him with her dark eyes and her lips slightly parted and her hair falling perfectly around her face...

"Are you gonna sit down or stare at me all night?" Dean blinked himself out of his reverie, shaking his head to clear it as he moved to sit beside Anna, opening the kit and rummaging for what he needed to clean the cut on her head.

They were quiet for a while. It seemed that neither of them knew exactly where to start. Dean decided to go for it.

"So," he began while he wiped the trickle of dried blood away from the skin of her cheek, "uh..." He forgot what he'd been about to say. _Dangit._ He immediately felt like an idiot again.

"My parents are gone," she said rather suddenly, her eyes staring past him at nothing, her face blank save for the slight furrowing of her brow. He started at the tone her voice had taken. It was soft, not hesitant, but very nearly flat, as if she were merely mentioning that she'd forgotten that she needed to change a light bulb.

"What, uh, what do you mean 'gone'?" he asked, finding his own voice had softened considerably. She still didn't meet his eyes, and he continued to clean the scrapes on her arm.

"I woke up about a week after," she said in that same soft voice, and he knew she meant after she'd been sort-of-killed by the demon, "and the house was quieter than usual. My mom's usually up early and making noise. I went to wake my dad up. He never hears the alarm. I knocked on their door, but I figured he was just still asleep." Dean could see it all happening in his head; Anna waking up confused, knocking on the door to her parent's bedroom, opening it when no one answered...he glanced at her face quickly, noting her still unfocused eyes that looked more wet than normal, and he pressed his lips in a tight line, hating that she was obviously remembering something painful.

"I went in, and I didn't really get it at first, ya know? It took me almost a full minute to realize the red on the walls was blood, and the room was cold because the window was shattered. I tried not to scream; I didn't want to scare my brother. I went and got him from his room, made him go to the neighbor's house before I called the police. My parents weren't there," she added, and she finally met his eyes, her face still oddly blank, and it hurt him to see her like this, "just the blood. And sulfur, but _I_ found that. The police didn't notice. Nobody notices anything anymore," she surprised him by suddenly looking livid, and he felt his own expression melting into one of concern, but he didn't interrupt; he sensed she needed to tell him this way, without stopping.

"Ever since...since I came back, it's like something broke the barrier, and everything that never existed in my world suddenly found a way in. And this town, this place is a magnet for anything evil. Just this month I've salted and burned forty-seven bodies of angry spirits just in Riverside County. I've taken down two revenants, a witch, and a werewolf."

Dean was finding it very hard not to freak out. An image of Anna standing small and breakable in front of a massive, snarling werewolf flashed in his mind, and Dean had to close his eyes and focus on breathing normally to keep himself calm, _she's fine, she's not hurt, she's okay_.

"Tonight I had to go after my own grandmother," she whispered. Dean's eyes flew open, and he suddenly had a sensation of tasting something bad in his mouth as he kept his hands on Anna's shoulders, not sure what else to do while she kept talking.

"She was hurting people," Ana's voice cracked for the first time, faltering, "My grandpa and his new wife. I had to stop her," She looked up at Dean again, her expression morphing until she was pleading, almost begging him to understand, "I was the only one that knew how, that she was afraid of birds, that she was connected t-to the locket, and that 'Happy Birthday' was h-her favorite song..." she was gripping his sleeve with her left hand, struggling not to cry, he could tell, "and I just...I just did it. I stopped her. And she's gone." Anna closed her eyes then, and Dean wanted to pull her into a hug, and tell her it was okay and that he understood, but he knew there was more to say, and he couldn't do anything until she was done, because she needed to tell him as much as he needed to hear it.

"And Brian..." Anna was crying in earnest now, sobbing between her next words, and Dean recognized the name of Anna's best friend, recalled how she loved him like her own family, and he knew what was coming, "h-he was helping me so, so much...he worked at th-the hospital...nurs-sing..." more sobbing, she wiped at her face with one hand, but the tears kept coming, "he-he cleaned me up after hunts, never asked me w-why...I told him not to ask...and his sister v-visited him with-with her b-baby, and I didn't, didn't think, I-I didn't _know_..." Dean was holding her close now, and it was breaking him as she cried heavily into his shoulder, sobbing the phrase 'six-months-old' over and over again. He knew what had happened; the six-month-old child, probably sleeping near his mother at Brian's house, wherever his house was, and the shock of a stranger near the crib, the scream of a woman pinned to the ceiling, the heat of the fire that would have burned the house to the ground with everyone inside...

"A-a-all of them! His mom and d-dad and him and his-his sister and the, the ba-by..." she couldn't make anymore words, she was crying too hard, and Dean found that he wanted very badly to cry with her, hating what she'd been through, hating that he hadn't been with her while it was happening, hating that she was broken and he had no way to fix it.

* * *

Anna remembered as she cried.

She remembered seeing her parents the night before they disappeared, remembered having to explain to Josh that his parents were gone, knowing they were dead but unsure how to let her brother know, she remembered the life insurance company visiting and receiving the money, using it to protect the house, to buy guns, to buy salt, and to pay for Josh to go to school.

She remembered singing 'Happy Birthday' with her grandma when she was little, remembered when she'd received the locket for Christmas, remembered promising never to lose it or break it.

She remembered getting the call that Brian's house had burned down, that everyone had been killed, turning to gaze in shock at his guitar still in the living room of the house that was hers now, his guitar that was like another limb for him, his guitar that he'd forgotten when he'd been over two days before to babysit her brother. She remembered how even Josh had cried when she told him, how he'd fallen asleep with his arm around the guitar by his bed, how she'd taken it that night to a dirt lot and burned it, crying and hating herself but knowing that she wouldn't be able to do it later if he came back, a transparent spirit charred and dangerous in death as he would never have been in life.

She pressed her face into Dean's shoulder and balled for all she was worth, hating herself for her weakness but so incredibly grateful and even happy that Dean was there, his arms around her, holding her and kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair as he murmured assurances in her ear, his voice calming and loving and so _safe_. She had missed him so much, had worried so much, had been so sure she would never get to see him again, that it might've all been in her head, that she might just be insane...

And suddenly she was grabbing his face and kissing him, kissing him like she wanted to kiss him that day when she sent him with Sam, kissing him like she should have when she'd last had the opportunity, kissing him because she wanted him and needed him and loved him and…

And he kissed her back, and he was eager but gentle, and her face was wet but the tears were over, and he twisted his fingers into her hair and held her against him, and in that moment she didn't care that she was dirty and bruised and scared, because she was totally and irrevocably happy that Dean was here with her, the way it should be. She forgot that her brother was spending the night at his friend Conner's house again, she forgot that her parents and best friend were gone and her life was a mess, she forgot it all because nothing else mattered, not demons or spirits or brothers or friends, because there was Anna and there was Dean and there was nothing else, because they were nothing without each other anyway.

* * *

The door was thick and hard. When she knocked, the sound seemed to echo strangely, and it made her head hurt more.

She breathed heavily, trying to make the world stop swaying, and she moaned softly, waiting for the door to open. _Please...just open, please._ The sound of a lock turning nearly brought her to tears, she was so relieved.

The door was open a few seconds while Brian stared at her with his mouth slightly open. Tall and built, he was wearing his work out clothes, obviously just home from the gym, and his body showed that he spent plenty of his time there. His dark hair was messy and his dark eyes were wide as he took in the sight of Anna swaying in his doorway, blood coming down her face and seeping into her shirt. Then everything moved very quickly at once.

"Oh my GOD!" Brian cried much too loud, and she barely had time to wince before Brian was picking her up and carrying her swiftly across his living room, the door slamming behind him, cussing so intently Anna might have taken offense had she not been distracted by the pounding in her head. Brian laid her down on the couch, then swept around the room, up the stairs, through the kitchen, back into the living room carrying gauze and alcohol and towels and a pot - _what's with the pot?_ - and water bottles and some sharp objects that didn't look very fun.

"Bri...Brian." _Please don't freak out, please, please don't throw a fit._

"I know Anna, I gotcha, gosh you're so stupid, _why_ do you do this to me, what the heck were you _doing_, oh man you're bleeding a lot, it's okay honey, I'm here, you're okay, I've gotcha, you're such an _idiot_, I can't believe this, hey stay with me Anna, open your eyes, that's right, good girl, _dangit_ you're such a jerk!"

Anna would've thrown something at him, by her head was hurting a lot.

"My head hurts...lot." _Dude, shut up already._

"I know, I know Anna, I'm gonna make it stop, I don't think you need a hospital, but dangit if you keep this up I swear one day I won't be able to fix you up, does that hurt, I'm sorry, you need stitches, where's my suturing needle, here drink this," he gave her a bottle of what she could've sworn was tequila, "that's it, okay this is gonna hurt and I'm sorry honey, why do you _do_ this to me, show up bleeding on my doorstep, nearly gave me a stroke, _why_ do I put up with you, drink some more, aw please don't do this anymore, you're my best friend Anna and I love you and everything but gosh you bleed in waterfalls, stop moving."

"Brian," she managed to grab his wrist, her vision swimming awkwardly while her brain began to haze from the tequila. He paused in his frantic monologue, meeting her eyes with as much concern and frustration and love as any father or brother or friend could only imagine having. She focused for just a second, and looked at him with the look he said should be illegal, the look that he could never say no to, the look that she'd given him every other time she'd come to him bleeding or bruised.

"Thank you," Anna said. Brian closed his eyes and nodded, and as Anna closed her own eyes, she heard him speaking to her as she passed out.

"Anything for my best buddy...god you're so stupid…" and he kept up a steady stream of profanity while he stitched her head up...

Anna drifted from her dreaming, feeling her self waking up, sensing the sunlight behind her eyelids, but she fought to stay asleep. She wanted to stay in the dream, where Brian wasn't dead, where it wasn't her fault, where she wasn't alone.

She gave up, giving in to the morning. With eyes still closed, she frowned, stretching, and froze.

This didn't feel like her blankets.

Too small, her back was against something, there shouldn't be so much light.

And she could hear a sizzling sound coming from somewhere to her left.

She bolted up right, eyes flying open, hand reaching automatically for the handgun on her bedside table, and she brought it up aiming...

No gun. She had no gun in her hands, and she was on her living room couch, aiming without a weapon at the salt outlined window.

She dropped her hands and groggily assessed her surroundings. She looked down at herself, seeing a blanket draped over her, and she tried to remember why she wasn't in her bedroom. She turned blearily toward the sizzling sound to see Dean hovering over a frying pan in the kitchen, the smell of what was undoubtedly bacon reaching her. Memories of the night before washed over her, and she felt the same sense of safety and relief and piercing emotion that she had then. She sighed, and rubbed at her eyes, trying to wake up.

"Dean? You cookin'?" He turned and grinned a bit sheepishly at her, and dangit if he didn't look incredibly attractive holding a spatula.

"Well, trying; it's been awhile since I've cooked anything. Bacon and eggs okay?"

She grinned at him, climbing off the couch and going to examine his efforts, which looked incredibly appetizing. She realized she was starved.

"Awesome," she replied, hugging his side momentarily before going to grab plates from the cupboard.

* * *

It was ten'o'clock when they sat to eat.

Dean couldn't stop smiling.

It felt incredibly weird to be eating a breakfast he actually cooked in an actual house at an actual kitchen table with a girl he could actually see himself living with. On second thought, weird didn't even cover it.

But at the same time, it felt so incredibly relaxing, and he couldn't find it in himself to worry what they would do next or if they could keep this up or anything, because he couldn't get his mind to work past the fact that Anna was sitting across from him eating his cooking.

Apparently, his temporary blissfulness made him temporarily stupid too.

"So what happened?" The question popped out of his mouth without him meaning it to. _No, don't ask that, you idiot! I didn't mean it, Anna, I don't want to know._

"What do you mean?" she looked at him quizzically, chewing her bacon.

"In Ohio, after I left. What happened?" _Shutup! What am I doing? Please don't answer, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot..._

She froze, mid-chew. Then swallowed, staring at her plate. She didn't look angry or uncomfortable, just surprised. Dean meanwhile, was inwardly blowing gaskets again.

"Are...are you sure you want to know?" She looked at him, and _what is that look, it that skepticism? Worry? Concern?_

Dean's head nodded of its own accord. _No. Please, no. I don't, really._ Anna looked at him, long and hard, then she shrugged and started talking casually, eating her food and acting like this was a conversation as normal as the weather.

"It was fine for a while. I mean, I was scared, but mostly only because I was afraid something might happen to you and Sam. I kept thinking something was gonna go wrong, like there was something right in front of my nose that I was missing. Then it just kind of clicked in my head; I dunno how I knew, but I realized the room number was 22 and I just knew that was bad news, like some psychic warning or something, I guess. But it was too late of course," Dean was beginning to feel slightly sick, watching Anna talk so calmly about it, eating at the same time, "The demon was already there. The cell phone died and the lights went out, and then the ceiling and floor cracked, breaking the devil's traps. The salt lines got blown around and I thought I knew where it was so I started shooting, but it happened too fast, and I never actually saw it. Threw me around a lot," Anna said holding her last piece of bacon, shrugging again. Dean felt like he may never have any desire to eat ever again, "and then it started to tear me up from the inside, you know what I mean. It was over pretty quickly, so it wasn't that bad."

Dean heard himself make a kind of choking sound, and Anna looked up at him.

"I mean, of course it was awful," she amended, looking somewhat alarmed at whatever expression was on his probably stark white face, "but it wasn't drawn out or anything. I knew I was going to die, though, and I was mainly just sad that I wouldn't see you again. I was afraid to die alone," she was staring off into space again, and Dean was struggling to keep breathing, trying desperately to keep down the four bites of breakfast he'd taken before she told this story, "and then you were there. And I wasn't scare even though I knew I was dying, because you were there with me. You said you didn't know what to do, but I didn't expect you to; I just wanted you to stay with me. You carried me outside, I think....I remember being inside of the car. Then I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I think that was the worst part. I guess that was when I died. I woke up in my bed, though. It was like I'd never been gone. I thought it was all a dream, at first. But I still had this..."

She pulled his necklace out from her shirt, the bronze amulet hanging innocently from the black leather cord. Dean was still working through the flash of memory he'd gotten when she talked about herself dying. He was trying not to pass out or cry out, trying to stop sweating and clenching his fists, trying to ignore the full plate of thoroughly disgusting-looking food in front of him. He recognized the necklace for what it was, what it would've meant to her these last five months, because it was the same thing her necklace had been for him.

Knowing she'd kept it gave him something, made him feeling some warm emotion that allowed him to calm down and feel okay again.

He met Anna's eyes and saw her small, concerned smile.

He got up, walked around the kitchen table, and wrapped her in his arms, feeling that he might never let go.


	7. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

For the first time, things were awkward.

"Dean, this is my brother, Josh."

"Hey, Josh."

"Josh, this is Dean."

Dean couldn't help but feel that Anna's ten-year-old brother didn't like him for some reason. They were all situated in the car, Anna in the driver's seat, Dean sitting passenger, and Josh in the back behind Anna. Anna had started the car, but she was driving slowly, stealing glances at her passengers; Dean could tell she wanted to be able to see Dean's reaction to the kid. She didn't seemed concerned with Josh's reaction; Dean got the impression from Anna that Joshua didn't have a problem with anyone.

The boy had met his gaze for all of two seconds before turning to poke his sister in the back with one finger.

"Who is he?" Josh's voice sounded accusing, and Dean found himself unsure what to say, or if he should say anything at all.

"Uh..." Anna began, looking taken aback by the way Josh was looking suspiciously at Dean, "he's uh, Dean's my..." Dean thought Anna looked kinda funny when she was trying to decide just what Dean was.

"Boyfriend?" Dean supplied. Anna looked at him, made a face s if to say 'that is so weird', then rolled her eyes.

"Yeah," Anna said looking down at her brother, trying and failing to hide her blush, "he's my boyfriend."

"Why is he here?" Josh asked bluntly. Anna frowned down at him.

"He's here to meet you-"

"Where's he staying?" Dean watched Anna stare at Josh.

"W-with us..."

"Why?"

"Josh-"

"It's okay," Dean interrupted, guesturing to Anna not to get all parental like she looked she was about to do. He could tell Josh wasn't usually a rude kid. Dean twisted in his seat. Josh was vry nearly scowling at him. Dean smiled his best 'I'm totally harmless' smile.

"Hey buddy-"

"Don't call me that," Josh's scowl became more pronounced. Dean could see Anna wincing out of the corner of his eye.

"Okay," Dean fumbled," no problem. Look, I know you don't know me, but don't worry about it. I won't be a pain, Josh, I promise." Dean put out a hand to the ten-year-old, grinning again, and hoping the kid was willing to make peace.

Josh glanced at his hand, then turned his head to stare straight ahead, the scowl not quite gone from his face.

Dean withdrew his hand, unsure whether to be abashed or to start laughing; it _was_ kinda funny.

Anna didn't think so.

"Joshua!"

The boy didn't answer. Anna looked shocked, then her eyes narrowed slghtly,and something like genuine anger flitted acros her eyes for only the merest second.

"Christo," she said, her eyes focused on the rearview. Dean gaped.

Josh didn't respond at all, except to give Anna a kind of confused look.

Dean scratched the back of his head and muttered, "Wow, awkward," to himself. Anna grimaced, but her eyes stayed on the road.

After that, the drive was silent.

* * *

Josh was in the house the second Anna had the door unlocked. He went immediately upstairs and it sounded like he'd gone to his room, no doubt to play with his action figures.

Anna took a moment to stare after her brother. She heard Dean closing the front door and, locking it behind her.

She felt Dean come to stand just behind her.

"Cute kid," he said, and he sounded like he was trying to suppress a laugh. Anna turned around and Dean was biting his lip to hide his smirk, "not exactly what I expected, but..." Anna rolled her eyes.

"He never acts like that," Anna insisted, striding to the kitchen while Dean followed, sniggering, "He's the most well-behaved little thing in the world! I dunno..."

"Well, at least we can safely say he's not possessed, right?" Dean's eyes were twinkling. Anna slugged his shoulder playfully.

"Shutup, you brat," she grinned, then looked down at the counter, "I just need to make sure sometimes. Everything keeps changing around here, around me. Everyone keeps acting weird, and then a week later I find out she's a witch or he's a werewolf. I just..." she looked up at Dean, feeling embarrased, but not stupid, "I want to be careful. Epecially with him. For him. No demon is going to get my brother."

Dean cupped her face in his hand.

"Hey, don't worry about it, okay? He's fine right now, even if he doesn't like me," Anna smirked at that, and Dean grinned at her, "And I'm glad you're being careful. You're right; you need to make sure sometimes." He leaned against the counter and wrapped his arms around Anna, so that she was leaning on him, her head on his chest. Dean took a breath, and then sighed, reaching a hand back to scratch his head again.

"What?" Anna asked.

"Well, speaking of demons..."

"Aw _crap_."

"Yeah, I know, but..."

"No, you're right. That thing is still out there, and probably still wants to kill us all, preferably slowly and with lots of bloody screaming," Dean flinched almost imperceptably at Anna's words and his arms tightened around her just slightly. She pretended not to notice, "but we can't just sit around waiting for it to find us and win."

"Well, I definitely don't plan on letting it win." Dean was stroking her hair. And lifted her head to look at him, a determined grin on her face.

"I guess we'll just have to kill it then, huh?" Anna said. Dean stilled, his face expressionless. Anna frowned, "What?"

Dean took another deep breath, and Anna pulled back too look at him better.

"It's just..." Dean began, then seemed to change his mind. After a pause, he started differently, "No. Not 'we'." He was trying to sound authoritative, Anna could tell, but there was a small glitch in the set of his eyes, something that said he was afraid of a fight. Anna pulled away from him completely, keeping her face calm and blank.

"I've watched you die once, Anna. It's not happenning again. I want your help, but you're going to be a part of this fight. And...that's just it." Dean finished with his arms crossed, still leaning agianst the counter and looking solemnly at her.

There was a thick pause where neither of them did anything for about ten seconds. Anna knew Dean was waiting for the explosion.

She didn't give him one.

She turned on her heel and strode out of the kitchen.

"Anna!"

She didn't bother to check if Dean was following. She went straight to her front door and started unlocking the bolts.

"Anna, what are you doing?" Dean started to put his hand on her arm but she shrugged it off. She pulled the door wide and stood beside it, her face still calm as she met Dean's confused and slightly alarmed expression.

"Get out," she told him. Dean looked like he'd just been slapped.

"W-what?" his voice was quiet, hurt sounding, but Anna ignored that, ignored how it made her want to crumble. She needed to do this.

"Get out of my house," she said. Dean just stared at her.

"Anna-" She didn't let him get another word in. She stepped up to him, her finger in his chest, and she felt her face change, no longer calm, but furious and most likely a bit scary.

"No, you shut your mouth! I _know_ what could happen. I know that we could _all_ die. But I am _through_ being afraid. I am _through_ with waiting in the motel room while you go and save the day. I am going to be part of this fight, I'm going to give it everything I've got, and if that means I've got to die to get rid of this thing, then you're just going to have to deal with it because I'm a hunter now!" all the blood had drained from Dean's face, his lips were clamped together and his eyes were wide, "I'm capable and I''ve decided, and I'm not going to back out because _you're_ afraid, Dean," she stepped back, glaring, and stood by the door again.," And if you can't handle that, then you need to leave. If you aren't going to take me seriously and respect me enough to make my own decisions, then just get out of my house."

They stood there staring at eachother, Anna breathing heavily from her rant, and Deann looking like he wasn't breathing at all.

Then he moved. He took a step toward the door.

And Anna felt something inside her break, which sucked, because she didn't have much left that wasn't broken already. Dean had found her, brought back some semblance of hope, of sanity to the craziness her world was succumbling to. She didn't think she could do this without him, she didn't think she could succeed unless he was there to keep her grounded.

She'd kept herself from feeling during the last two minutes, from allowing anything to find purchase in her mind except what she needed to say, from finding a grip where she might not be able to speak or think or move or do anything, because this was hurting worse than anything she'd ever felt in her life, worse than her parents or Brian or dying. Telling Dean to leave was tearing her apart inside and outside and everywhere.

And seeing him step toward the door to go was too much.

But he didn't take a second step, and his hand reached out and slammed the door shut.

Anna could feel herself shaking, her adrenalin gone, her panic manafesting at a delay, and her relief not yet able to take effect. She barely registered that Dean was saying, "Fine. Alright. I-I'm sorry," and then his arms were around her, and she let herself fall, her knees buckling.

And she let herself feel everything she had stifled, every emotion and hurt and moment of hating herself for hurting him. She let it wash over her while he pushed her against the wall, and then her relief that he was still there finally bubbled up, and she suddenly wanted nothing else but him, and only him.

And ironically, it seemed that he wanted the same thing.

He kissed her, or maybe she kissed him, it didn't really matter, because they were both gripping eachother and pulling the other closer, hard and tight, unwilling to let go. In between kisses he kept saying he was sorry, or that he loved her, or that he didn't want to leave her, and she said she loved him, and it was okay, it would be okay, she'd be okay, they'd all be okay.

And Anna was actually glad that Josh had gone to his room and stayed there.

* * *

Dean woke up on the kitchen floor, which was weird.

He sat up, and found that one of the throw blankets from the sofa was over him. He heard a shuffling on the other side of the counter, so he got up to look over.

Anna was there, arranging something on the kitchen table. Dean felt a crooked grin spread accross his face.

_Oh...yeah...awesome._

"Hey," he said, climbing to his feet and spying his shirt hanging on the microwave handle. Anna glanced back at him over her shoulder and smirked.

"Hey yourself," she said, turning back to whatever she was fiddling with on the table. Dean got his shirt on and went over to see.

"What're you doing over th...whoa," Dean was standing beside Anna now, and he saw what was laid out on the table.

Knives. Guns. Salt. Water bottles. _Holy water_, Dean recognized. Her cache of weapons rivaled his own. _Wow._

"Since when did you have thousands of dollars to blow on hunting gear?!" he asked, half-laughing and only half joking.

"My parents' life insurance," Anna replied.

"Oh."

"So you ready?" Anna didn't miss a beat. Dean snuck a kiss behind her ear; he didn't think about doing that kind of think, but impulse just made him do that kind of thing around her.

"Yeah, of course I'm ready," Dean replied, confidence lacing his voice,"Um....what am I supposed to be ready for?" Anna laughed.

"You're going hunting with me tonight," Anna explained as if to a child. Dean struggled between finding another place to plant a kiss and finding a place to lock her up.

"Right," Dean settled for a one word answer, but managed to keep his voice normal and his expression in check.

"Don't sound so excited," Anna rolled her eyes. Dean sighed.

"What are we hunting?" he asked. _Best to treat this like any other job, even if I'm going to be freaking out the entire time._

"Simple salt and burn."

"Do you have a death wish?!"

"What?"

"You can't say 'simple salt and burn'," Dean grumbled while Anna tried not to laugh at him, "It never turns out that way when you say it! You just totally jinxed us. Might as well screw the whole thing now."

"Oh, quit whining and hand me my Glock."

"Which one?! You have three!"

* * *

Anna had the kitchen table clear of any kind of weapon long before Josh came downstairs, power ranger in hand and with his stomach growling. Dean tried to make friendly conversation, but Josh seemed to be ignoring him.

Anna insisted on making dinner alone, so Dean spent the evening wandering her house. He heard Josh start babbling loudly to Anna about his friend's new video games the moment he left the room. Dean smirked and headed toward the garage.

Anna's three-car garage was a maze of boxes and various collections of junk in various stages of dustiness with a narrow walkway cleared out. The walkway led to the door of an office that took up a third of the garage, an add-on that had been her mother's business managing area. Dean had already seen the office, now a kind of hunting headquarters, printouts of demons and creatures taped to the walls, cabinets full of case files that were all either marked 'solved/resolved' or 'solved/pending', save for one that was marked 'unsolved:primary case'; the case file on the demon.

Dean didn't go back to the office, but whiled the wait for dinner away looking at the photo albums in the garage. Pictures of a four-year-old Anna at Disneyland, pictures of her with her parents or grandmother, Christmases and birthdays, baby Joshua.

Dean barely noticed Anna's presence when she came to find him. He teased her through dinner about her baby photos. Josh didn't say much, but Dean thought he saw him almost laugh at least twice.

They waited until Josh was asleep before they left. Dean watched her doublecheck the salt lining around his doorway and windows, then draw on the door with her finger and mutter something before grabbing her duffel bag and heading downstairs.

"It's a latin rite," she whispered to him while she locked and did the same drawing/recitng thing to the front door, "I'm blessing the house. Should keep any creature, spirit, or lesser demon out. Not to mention the devils traps engraved everywhere."

"That's a lot of protection," Dean commented as they got into her car. _Man, I miss the Impala._

Anna didn't say anything until the car was started. She gazed back at her house, and Dean saw the worry in her face.

"It never feels like enough," she said. Dean nodded slowly and swept her hair behind her ear, traling a hand down her face.

"Yeah," he sighed, speaking softly while they drove away, "I know what you mean."

* * *

They pulled up to March Air Force Memorial, a cemetery for fallen soliers a good forty minutes later. Apparently, one Private Alan Semple was haunting the families of a couple of his war buddies who had chickened out and left him behind back in Afganistan.

It seemed like Anna was right; a simple salt and burn should do the trick.

_Yeah right, _Dean thought to himself.

Or at least he had thought that until Anna opened her trunk. If he'd been impressed by her arsenal at her house, he was completely floored by the literal armory in her trunk. She didn't even bother with a false bottom; she had tools he'd never even seen before, much less used.

Which actually made him feel a bit frustrated. She only been hunting for five months, dangit.

He felt his frustration grow when she started handing him things he didn't know how to use.

"Okay, hold this....and this...and this one too, don't turn it upside down or it'll explode and you're hands will be blown away..." _What the...?!_ "...I think that's it. You want anything else?" She looked at him, and he looked down at his full hands, plus the sawed-off he'd chosen for himself earlier

"I think we're good," he said, and he sounded exasperated even to himself.

"Alright," She slammed her trunk shut and shouldered her duffel, "let's get it done then."

Dean made it a point not to follow, but keep even with Anna's pace; he wasn't used to being second man, and he wasn't likeing it so much either.

The cemetery was quiet and the night was clear. They found the grave easily, mainly because Anna had a map she'd printed from the internet that told her the exact plot where Private Semple was buried.

Dean felt like pulling a 'Sammy pout'; Anna was having no trouble at all. She didn't even need him.

When they reached the grave, Anna held out her hand for one of the things Dean had in his arms that he had yet to identify. He handed the small box-like object that looked like it was wrapped in an old t-shirt and alot of string to her, trying to pretend he knew exactly what it was. It was the thing she'd told him not to turn upside down for fear of his hands begin blown off. She began fiddling with a string attatched to it and nodded at the other thing held to his side by his arm; four sealed tubes that bent at an arch and seemed locked together by tiny hinges at the edges. It looked like they were filled with salt.

"Open that and put it around us, will you?" she flashed him a small smile and then went back to fiddling with the box/string/exploding thing.

"Yeah, sure," Dean said, and he put the third thing he couldn't identify down, devoting his attention to the four side-by-side tubes. He turned it over in his hands, feeling like an idiot.

Anna glanced back up at him, quirking an eyebrow.

"You want me to-"

"I got it, I got it," Dean cut her off, scowling at the tubing in his hands. He finally got it in his rip right and pulled. The tubbes snapped apart, automatically assuming a shape.

It was a circle. A huge, plastic, salt-filled, tube circle. Like a hulla hoop built for ten people, collapsable so that it fit in the trunk of Anna's car. Dean nearly toppled trying to balance it, and then managed to place it around them and the grave.

It was a perfect circle with plenty of space to dig and set down all their gear; automatic protection.

"Huh," he blinked a couple of times, and he saw Anna looking at him, waiting. She was wearing that face again, the one that seemed to ask him for his approval, the face that looked afraid he might not like something she did.

He wished Anna would stop making that face.

"That's...that's something else," he said, scratching the back of his head as he looked around at the circle, "It's...good. Dang. You made this?" he asked, knowing the answer already.

"Yeah. It's just easier, ya know," she shrugged, setting the box aside and picking up on of the shovels. He wondered vaguely why she had two of them.

She apparently could tell what he was thinking as she handed him a shovel too.

"I've broken more than one, so I always keep an extra one just in case," she explained, ans dug her shovel into the dirt of Private Semple's grave. Dean followed suit.

"How the heck do you break your shovels?" he asked, the teasing tone of his voice coming back easily. Anna grinned.

"Maybe I should rephrase," she laughed, "the angry spirits have broken more than one of my shovels. Either against a tree, against my car, and once against my _head_," she shook her head at the memory, still grinning, though Dean honestly couldn't see how on earth that could possibly be funny," man, that one sucked so bad. Almost crashed driving to Brian' house to get patched up, kept seeing six of everything."

Dean bit the side of his cheek to stop the automatic 'freak-out' that wanted to escape, and then stopped chomping the inside of his mouth when he could control his tongue.

"That does sound pretty annoying," he responded dryly, digging a little more feircely, "you get hurt alot like that? Shovel to the head kind of thing?"

"Naw, usually it's more like tombstone to the face or massive claw in the back kind of thing. But I've never been to the hospital because of a hunt, so I guess that's not bad, right?"

"Says you," Dean grumbled, and then huffed, "Great thing to be all cheery about. 'Oh, I've only suffered concussions and maulings, but I guess that's not bad'. I swear, if I never see you bleed again it'll be too soon."

Anna just smiled somewhat sadly at him.

Private Alan's spirit showed up just as they reached the coffin, but apart from making it cold and a bit windy, he couldn't do reach them over the salt. He tried to toss a few rocks at them, but his aim was fairly poor for being a soldier, and they dodged almost all of them.

Dean still wanted to hurry up, however; no sense waiting around for luck to run out.

"Where's the salt? And lighter fluid?" he asked, practically having to shout over the now howling wind. Anna might've snorted, he couldn't hear, but it looked like it, and she ignored his question anyway, just shoving the box/string/exploding thing in his hands and shouting.

"Pull the string and toss it in, quickly, then hit the dirt," she told him. Dean shrugged moving to the edge of the rectangular hole that housed Private Alan's bones. _More new tricks. Winchester, you need to muster up some originality, man, or this chick's going to make a joke out of you._

He pulled the string and let the package fall, hearing the telltale sound of a spar and searing flame before he'd even had a chance to step back.

He ducked down next to Anna behind the grave marker just in time.

The explosion was bigger than he'd expected it to be; he could smell the gas-like scent of accelerant in the flames that lept up feet into the air, feel the grains of left-over salt that showered down like sand, hear the wind die down and the spirit's keening scream as his bones burned in a huge flash of heat and light.

"Holy!" Dean looked incredulously back at the grave, where the flames were smaller, but still hot, fueled by something alot more effective than lighter fluid. He turned to Anna, surprised to see her laughing hard as she sat next to him, and he found himself joining in, if for no other reason than the fact that she looked funny with bits of salt and grass in her hair and on her clothes.

"So whaddaya think?" She chuckled as they got to their feet, Dean still gazing at the grave, where the flames were quickly dying out. Whatever was fueling the fire was designed to last only a minute or so. The grave was nothing but smoldering wood and charred bones in no time.

"I think you've gotta teach me these new tricks, and never tell Sam that I didn't come up with them myself," he said, shaking his head and laughing as he picked up his shovel to cover the grave back up.

"I think I can deal with that," Anna said, zipping her duffel closed and picking her shovel up too, "as long as I can have the satisfaction of knowing I taught you anything about hunting." She winked at him and actually giggled. Dean glared at her.

"You're lucky I love you," he growled.

"Yeah, and you're lucky you've got a cute angry face."

"Yeah...hey!"

They finished, collapsed the salt ring, and went back to the car.

The whole thing had indeed been a simple salt and burn, neither of them were hurt, except that Dean thought his shovel had given him a splinter. _Stupid wood. _But he was happy to be with Anna. Comfortable touching her and talking to her.

Yet as they were driving back, Dean couldn't help but feeling there was something he'd forgotten, something missing.

He sat back in his seat and joked with Anna all the way back to her house, trying to ignore the blaring knowledge in the back of his head. He suppressed that feeling that had been seeping through him for the past two days, the aching that was almost physically painful, like a spike pressing further and further into him. He pushed away the powerful urge he had to voice it, to mention it or show it in any way.

So they went back to Anna's house, and Dean kept pretending that he didn't miss Sam.


End file.
